Read Online The Saint by Madeline Hunter - Free Book Online Page B

a
tendre
for her.”
    He tried to focus on what Pen was saying, but his mind’s eye was seeing Miss Kenwood lying on the ground and looking up at him with a startled blush that produced a charge through his veins. His hands felt her feminine waist once again and his body warmed from the closeness when he brought her down from her horse. The shadowy scent of lavender filled his head.
    â€œDo not concern yourself, Pen. Dante will not get himself entangled inadvertently.”
    â€œI am not concerned about Dante. Bianca, however, strikes one as so guileless.”
    Guileless?
    â€œAnd Dante … Vergil, I do not know if you are aware of this, as I am sure that no one speaks to
you
about it, seeing as how you are such a … but it is said that he is a merciless rake.”
    He wondered what Pen thought men talked about when they got together after dinner with their port and cigars. He had spent years being goaded about his brother’s conquests, and on more than one occasion had been forced to stare down an irate husband.
    â€œEven Dante respects the basic rules. If he has an interest in her, it is an honorable one, I am sure.”
    She blinked stunned eyes at him. “You will permit that?”
    â€œWhy shouldn’t I?”
    â€œShe is very ignorant of the ways of the world and will be very disillusioned when she learns the truth about him.”
    â€œI would not interfere, Pen. Let things develop as they might. If he wins her, they will work things out the way couples always do with such things.”
    â€œIf you say so, but I always resented that no one warned me about Anthony.”
    He had wanted to, but as a mere youth it had not been his place, especially with their mother alive and managing things. A boy did not go to his older sister and inform her that her wonderful earl had a reputation as a libertine, and that shadowy allusions suggested his sins were not typical ones.
    Someone should have, however, and he remembered well his sister’s unhappiness. Pen’s formal separation from the earl these last five years had brought her some peace, but at the cost of her social standing and a perpetual loneliness. The reminder that a bad marriage could be hell made him ill at ease about Bianca, and he wished Pen had not brought up her own loveless, childless union.
    She gave him a look of female skepticism. “I will hold my tongue and see how things develop, but if I suspect that he toys with her, I will scold him severely, Vergil. That is something I will not tolerate.”
    â€œDo as you think best, Pen.”
    She left, and he lifted the letter that he had been reading when she entered.
    He scanned its contents again. The biggest problem with a secret was that it always demanded your attention at the most inconvenient times. He had planned to stay here as long as Dante did, but that would not be possible now.
    He left the study and went to his chambers to tell Morton to expect a journey the day after next.

    The next afternoon Bianca sat in the drawing room, tapping her foot impatiently. She expected a visitor sometime soon. Unfortunately, the one whose card the butler delivered to Pen was not the one she anticipated.
    Nigel breezed in, looking very romantic in his nip-waisted Parisian frock coat and dark muffler and tousled shoulder-length hair. He bestowed a warm smile of familiarity on Bianca while Pen greeted him.
    â€œYou are recently returned from Paris,” Charlotte said. “You will have to tell us all about it.”
    Nigel obligingly entertained them with some descriptions of the latest fashions. Bianca barely heard, even though her cousin directed most of his attention to her. She listened for sounds of another arrival.
    The doors opened, but it was only Vergil and Dante.
    â€œI hope that you plan to make Woodleigh your home, at least through the autumn,” Penelope said.
    â€œIt is my intention to do so.”
    â€œI will be hosting a house party